Tollesbury Time Forever (12 page)

Before I could say anything, The Walrus called out from the side:

 
“F - Forgive everybody everything.”

And all the children clapped. Except John, who remained steadfast and unmoving atop his bale.

And so it had begun.

The next child, a girl, stood up behind her bale of hay. She had big blonde pig tails, the ends of which danced upon her narrow shoulders. When she spoke, I was heartbroken by how few teeth she had in her mouth. All I could think was that when asleep she must look beautiful.

“My name is Louise,” she said. “And I have a poem for you.”

She licked her lips, smiled, looked over at the other children and winked slyly. And then, in the most sultry of voices, surely not that of a child, she recited her poem. What I write is word for word, for that poem keeps me, inspires me even to this day.

“From the day my wet body

flopped onto this earth,

I’ve tried to discover

what all this is worth;

the struggling and hiding,

the shouting and crying,

the creeping and running,

the need to keep trying.

So one day I fell

to the floor in distress,

to think of a way

to get out of this mess.

I closed my sore eyes

and hugged myself tight,

‘til truth became me

and I became light.

There was my answer!!

so joyful and free!!

Beauty itself

surrounding poor me!

For every being,

from here to the moon,

lend me your ears

(I’ll give them back soon!)

In truth the same fields

I had known all my days,

now are quite wondrous

the wheat and the maize.

I no longer see

with pretty girl eyes,

for my heart now has vision;

a mighty surprise!

I see glory in dirt

and wonder in rain,

magnificent rivers

where ditches have lain.

Fallen down ruins

are history bare;

a small meal for one

Is for two now to share.

The sky is not blue,

it’s purple and green;

the sea is a creature,

dark and serene.

The plants are alive,

church bells do sing;

love is amongst us -

ring a ding ding!

So my fine stranger

do one thing for me -

recognise beauty

wherever it be”

As she finished, she grinned such a wide grin I thought it would break right through the sides of her face. She overturned her bale to present the letter ‘R’, before hopping upon it. She then performed an elegant curtsey and breathed deep. The little ‘F’ boy, John, tapped her on the shoulder and whispered something into her ear. She blushed a little before looking straight at me beneath heavy lids.

”R - Recognise beauty wherever it be!” announced The Walrus.

A round of applause burst from the remaining children.

Clouds spread in the sky. And my fragile mind overflowed with wonder.

“Thank you, children,” said The Walrus, striding towards me. “You may go inside now, into the barn, come now. For I fear a storm be a-brewing.” He clapped his hands and the children hopped and skipped into the shelter that awaited them. But John and Louise remained on top of their bales of hay as if they were sculptures.

The Walrus slapped me roughly on the shoulder and led me into the barn. I looked behind at John and Louise as they awaited the impending downpour, standing still upon their respective bales of hay. And I saw them hold hands as the first cold drops of summer rain began to fall.

We sat around a long, gnarled wooden table constructed from battered planks that had been stripped from the trees of the English earth, such swirls and patterns as you never before saw in your natural life. I was at one end, The Walrus at the other. The seven children sat either side, heads down and hands clasped all ready to pray.

Outside, the skies raged on in all their raggedy fury and I could not help but think of the two children out there alone. Perhaps they had vanished as soon as we had all entered this hovel, just slipped into the soil, ready only to bloom again should some other lost and burned out wanderer emerge from a hole in the ground and come upon them.

The smell of charred potatoes hovered in the air and intensified as a boy emerged from the shadows into which I gazed so mournfully. He was carrying a large wooden bowl that had the same effect on the other children as would the most whizz bang of fireworks. The Walrus quelled the excited murmur by clearing his throat as the bowl was placed in the middle of the table.

“Now children. We have a guest,” he said, the eyes of the children falling back to their clenched palms.

Such solemnity. Charred potatoes. Gone are those days. We are in Happy Meal times or so it seems. But days are still days and nights are still nights.

The sun and the moon still stare down upon this hallowed and broken earth, still oversee my magical Tollesbury times. They are the great constants, the wonderful keystones of the cathedral that houses our lives. But it is in minds such as mine that break, that fold in upon themselves, that drip, drip with each woeful and inexplicable experience, that those constants - the sun and the moon - stand out as beacons of hope.

“Our guest has fallen upon us this day and for that we should give thanks,” said The Walrus.

The children turned my way and grinned, all dirt and sparkle and red cheeks and natural brown dishevelled cool. Each one winked at me in turn and gave me a thumbs up. It rippled round the long table like some whooping jazz wave, black and white and wailing. And when the last child winked and thumbed (even The Walrus had joined in!) I held out my hands in supplication and said the words those children had so longed to hear.

“Let’s eat!”

And, as you can imagine, they all dived in. I know I have said the fare before us smelled like charred potatoes, but it tasted like nothing I had ever tasted before. The mouthfuls of food almost became a part of me the moment they entered my mouth, dashing and splitting to all organs, supplementing and reinforcing, giving me just what I needed, rounding me off so to speak. It was the finest meal I ever ate, or indeed ever will eat; for it was just what was necessary and it was eaten in the company of the kings of this earth. For to see a child hungry transform into a child full and smiling is to see the elevation from poor man to king. No crowns, no; but majesty? Oh yeah, man.

When the plates were emptied and the children quietened, the same boy that had brought out that wonderful meal returned to clear the table. I couldn’t make him out too well but there was something about him, an aura of some kind that caused my heart to beat that bit faster. He was heavily built and clumsy in his movements, his head remaining bowed as he worked, his chin ever upon his chest. I could not see his face and I didn’t even know if he was aware of my presence, so keen was he upon his task. But I sensed an anger from him, a throbbing of soul and spirit that pounded in my direction, beating like the wings of a sullen bird trapped within a cage. I looked away for a moment to see what the weather was doing and by the time I had looked back he was gone.

“Children,” said The Walrus. “The skies are clear and our stomachs are full. We must get back to our task!”

The children yelled hooray and stood up at once, forming two separate lines by the door from whence we had come, The
Walrus taking the front - the conjoined spearhead of two arrows. It was then that I noticed the serving boy sitting on the floor in the corner. He was scraping the leftover potatoes out of the big bowl with a crude wooden spoon. He lurked there in the shadows, both of this hovel and in the dark and sombre outpourings of my life.

The Walrus began to weave back and forth, swaying on his bandy legs, feet absolutely still, but rolling his body, writhing like a giant John Lee Hooker crawling king snake. And as he did so, the children behind him in their two rows clapped out a beat, swaying too in unison, a great slap beat clap beat blues beat, slow and as serious as you like. Though the clapping remained cool and rhythmic, the power with which one hand hit the other began to increase, clap, snap, clap, oh yeah, clap, snap clap, oh yeah, CLAP, SNAP, CLAP and it moved and it grooved like some primeval roaring rattle of a train, slow and angry and full of beat up hopes and woes just a-rolling out that shambling station - CLAP, SNAP, CLAP and a CLAP, SNAP, CLAP, moving and a grooving into the moaning mixed-up world…

And The Walrus led them out into the sweating rainbow green fields growling loud from deep within the great gravel pit of his belly, roaring to the sweet skies of all our heavens wherever they may be…

CLAP, SNAP, CLAP

Oh yeah…

“When you got nothing

You got nothing to lose

DAMN BANG

When you got nothing

You got nothing to lose

DAMN BANG

But you always got something

‘Cause you never can lose the blues

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHEEEEEE…….

CLAP, SNAP, CLAP

Oh yeah…

So you get yourself something

And it’s yours all yours

DAMN BANG

So you get yourself something

And it’s yours all yours

DAMN BANG

Lock it deep inside you and

Barricade your doors

NANA-NA-NANA-NA-NANA-NA NAAAA!

So what do you do with your

New possession?

DAMN BANG

What do you do with your

New possession?

DAMN BANG

Just add it to the bottom

Of your full confession

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

You are the servant and

Mother Nature is your Queen

DAMN BANG

You are the servant and

Mother Nature is your Queen

DAMN BANG

She’s more beautiful than

Anything you ever seen

OOOOH YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!!

A rolling stone

Boys it don’t gather no moss

DAMN BANG

A rolling stone
 

Boys it don’t gather no moss

DAMN BANG

You gotta understand the nature

Understand the nature of loss.

BANG BANG

DAMN BANG

DAMN BANG”

And there we were, standing before the two children on their bales of hay, both dry as plaster and steady as the beat that had just cracked off across the fields.

The Walrus was bent down now, trying to retrieve his breath. But there are some things that once you get out, you can’t get back and don’t get back for it should be shared with the world. The two children were poised atop bales F and R and The Walrus stood behind the next bale. He turned it over to present a U.

“U,” he said, proudly. “Understand the nature of loss.”

He didn’t stand upon the bale of hay as the two children had, but walked slowly to where I stood, waving one of the other children to stand upon it instead. He sat down, cross-legged upon the sodden ground and I did the same.

“It’s just wet grass,” he whispered to me. “It‘s just life. How fine is that?”

I looked briefly over at him. No words were necessary.

That blues had just belted me in the gut just as it should. The Walrus had known nothing of my losses, be it my mother and father, my wife, my son, my chance of a rational life - yet he had given me of himself, blasted out from deep within him some ancient scream of understanding that we were both men here together trying to work out what the hell was going on in the fundamentals of this mad, mad, mad world. It must be said though, that he seemed a little further down the road of understanding than I. For he was conducting this show; I was merely the non-paying audience of one.

So there in front of me were the letters 'F-R-U' scrawled in red paint, or maybe blood for all I knew, on three bales of hay. The Walrus breathed heavily beside me. It was all he could do to point at the pale young boy who eyed him quizzically from behind the fourth bale of hay. The Walrus nodded as vigorously as he could and then coughed some more. The young boy politely waited for the air to clear and for The Walrus to be breathing a little easier before starting his
poem - a poem he recited with such gentleness, I ended up kneeling before him staring into his big brown eyes.